History UsefulNotes / Feminism

* The most popular perspective is that, just as it's possible for straight people to be in favor of same-sex marriage, or for non-Jews to be against anti-Semitism, it is very much possible for men to identify as feminist. Some well-known men who identify as feminists or have expressed feminist ideals include [[Series/{{Mash}} Alan]] [[Series/TheWestWing Alda]], Creator/JossWhedon, [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Kurt Cobain]], Creator/HayaoMiyazaki, Creator/HenrikIbsen, JohnStuartMill, [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] and [[Website/ChannelAwesome most of his male colleagues]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass Frederick Douglass]], Creator/LFrankBaum, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/03/16/trudeau-feminist-united-nations-women-forum_n_9480134.html Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau]], and [[http://www.glamour.com/story/glamour-exclusive-president-barack-obama-says-this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like former US President Barack Obama]].

Lesbians have been an important part of the feminist movement pretty much from day one -- prominent lesbian or bisexual feminists include Andrea Dworkin, Valerie Solanas, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Julia Serano, Camille Paglia and Mary Daly. However, many feminists are straight women--in fact, it's likely that ''most'' are, if for no other reason that homosexuals are believed to make up only 10% of the population. There are also male feminists and/or feminist allies (straight, bisexual, gay and asexual), asexual feminists, transgender feminists, and feminists of any other sexuality and gender identity you can think of. There have been a few feminist writers -- especially during the 1970's, before the movement had made as many gains as it had today -- who suggested that it might not be possible to have a truly egalitarian heterosexual relationship as long as sexism remained pervasive in society. This was fiercely debated even at the time, though, and it was certainly never mainstream feminist dogma that feminism carried a moral obligation to swear off sex with men.

The movement first gained coherence in TheSeventies, yes... But go back to any place and time where there has been widespread discrimination against women (namely, all of them), and you will find feminism--or, at least, [[FairForItsDay something that looks like feminism if you squint hard enough]]. The word "feminism" dates back to 1895; the entire "suffragette" movement, in which British women campaigned for the right to vote, began in 1865; and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan Christine de Pizan]] was writing feminist works as far back as the [[OlderThanPrint early 15th century]]. If you believe that men can be feminists and that one does not need to ''describe'' oneself as a feminist to be one, then the very first might well be Creator/{{Euripides}}, which would make feminism OlderThanFeudalism. (On the other hand, some of his contemporaries called him misogynistic even by Ancient Greek standards.) As for feminist action, you might as well talk about Ancient Romans getting disgusted by how Ancient Greeks treated women (this too is OlderThanFeudalism).

Likewise, feminists often wonder how much of certain purported differences - say, girls being better at reading and boys being better at math - are actual innate differences, versus how much they might be a result of socialization (e.g., girls are scared away from pursuing math/boys refuse to spend time reading because they don't want to behave "inappropriately" for their gender and/or they're already convinced they'll be bad at it ''due to'' their gender). Most feminists don't deny that it's ''possible'' there are some real, innate psychological differences between the sexes, but what exactly those differences ''are'' is a matter of heated debate even among experts who make it their life's work to study such things.

Feminists also have a problem with attributing to gender individual character traits that could have originated from other sources, like natural human reactions. For example, if Jenny is crying because her father died -- which surely warrants a good cry -- but people observing her assume that she's emotionally distraught because she's a ''giiiiirl''. If you're about to protest that this sort of behavioral mis-assignment could happen to anyone, well, you're right: it's a known psychological bias called the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error fundamental attribution error]].

One particular problem area is when feminist blogs and websites have mocking rules against "what about men?" discussions. These rules are typically placed due to hard experience. When feminism became a thing in the 70s, a pro-feminist counterpart movement sprung up called the "Men's liberation movement," which made the (again, not controversial) claim that sexism also hurts men in plenty of ways (cited examples include the [[DoubleStandard double standards]] in Divorce Laws, treatment of Domestic Violence and [[MenAreTheExpendableGender women's privileges such as their exemption from the Draft]]; [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement see here for more information]]). This movement eventually became a mostly academic discourse and/or was partially absorbed by feminism itself, since their goals do not conflict. Later, a breakaway group, called the "Men's ''Rights'' Movement", went a step further and campaigned actively against feminists, believing that feminism has gone too far and left women more privileged than men. Some put forward contentious ideas such as asserting either that men and women are harmed equally by sexism in different ways, things have gone the other way and now feminists are covertly oppressing men and that society promotes female privileges at the expense of men. The problems began when some Men's Right's supporters began to smear all feminists by association with those feminists who are misandrists and gave the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary reactionary]] view that society should undo some of feminism's achievements (''yes'' controversial; please do not discuss it here). For obvious reasons, "Men's Rights Activists" tend to find plenty to disagree with on feminism-centered websites, which has resulted in {{Flame War}}s, {{troll}}ing and worse. This is partially why feminists tend to be cautious about how much of that viewpoint they allow into their discussions.

* '''Privilege:''' The advantages (relative to disadvantages) one has when navigating through life. All the things about you that might make your life a little easier than the lives of other people in your social group. Examples include: protection from racism, protection from sexism, protection from religious discrimination, protection from homophobia, protection from classism, etc. When somebody tells you to "check your privilege", they're reminding you to recognize where you're coming from. For example, the popular feminist perception is that if you're straight and white, your experience differs from that of queer women of color; for instance, you can walk down street and kiss the person you love without getting yelled at, ''and'' not get yelled at to go back to your home country. The hardest part of this to understand is that privilege is context-sensitive; just because you enjoy certain advantages in one context, that doesn't mean you're not disadvantaged in others (an example is the treatment of Caucasians in South Africa). People who haven't figured this out -- which can range from disenfranchised blue-collar workers in rural America to non-white feminist women -- often use their contextual disadvantages to claim global disadvantages, or ignore the legitimate suffering of certain people because those people are privileged in other ways. A poor, hard-working white man might be offended at being called "privileged" because, as opposed to someone who's IdleRich, he has to put up with all kinds of crap -- while missing that there's still more kinds of crap he doesn't even have to ''know about'' because he's not black or a woman. BothSidesHaveAPoint, and the fact that privilege is so deeply contextual -- and, more importantly, that aforementioned context is often overlooked -- can make it ''very'' difficult to discuss.

There are places and times in which feminists ''can'' come across as a sort of StopHavingFunGuy: you're going about your day, making a joke about some AcceptableTargets, and suddenly a feminist says, "Hey, that's not actually funny." To a truly intersectional feminist, there ''are'' no AcceptableTargets, which says positive things about their mentality but sure makes it hard to crack jokes.

There are places and times in which feminists ''can'' come across as a sort of StopHavingFunGuy: you're going about your day, making a joke about some AcceptableTargets, and suddenly a feminist says, "Hey, that's not actually funny." To a truly intersectional feminist, there ''are'' no AcceptableTargets, which says positive things about their "LoveYouAndEverybody" mentality but sure makes it hard to crack jokes.

However, this logic is bound up in what Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} calls [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy kyriarchy]], the overall idea that every society must involve ''persecution''. Both patriarchy and matriarchy are subtropes of kyriarchy. It is true that most societies in human history have been kyriarchies, but it does not follow that all societies ''must'' be kyriarchies. ''This'' is the ThirdOption feminism actually strives for: the opposite of kyriarchy ''and'' patriarchy '''''and''''' matriarchy all at once, a {{utopia}} where ''nobody'' is oppressed.